Comment on - Business Standard - Out of business - published on May 21, 2011

Ref.: http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/outbusiness/436264/

Kalpana, thanks for the wealth of information. However certain core issues are not addressed - pertaining to higher education in our country, including business education.

There is always a differential in the quality of the institutes. Now how that differential is getting understood and addressed by the various stake holders is important. In this the first important issue is reliable information and its validation from the independent agencies. We did not have one so far. If AICTE, NBA and NAAC would have done their job well, there would not have been so many schools of dubious quality which have set up their shops across India. Surely the responsible authorities chose not to do their job in spirit, instead stuck only to letters. Opportunity was exploited by unscrupulous operators including the “sweet meat vendors”. Expectations in our society are sky rocketing, where as aspirations are low. This leads to fulfilling your expectations of becoming a manager, having a good job on the promises of the sellers and students and their parents pay for their lack of reality check and availability of validated information.

If a school is of grade which is say less than 50% on the scale then that school has to prepare itself to address the market for their product with all its limitations. Refer my blog Zindginama and the post http://zindginama.blogspot.com/2011/05/on-business-schools-in-india.html

All is not lost, given a reliable grading system which is simple and objective and does not last for 5 years or 10 years but only for a year can be a catalyst for the higher education institutions in India to improve quality in easy to do baby steps. CRISIL has started its education grading for business schools, it’s time that business schools, universities, and other stake holders - students, employers, faculty and funding agencies refer to the CRISIL grading of the institutions before taking a decision on associating with the school.

On Business Schools in India

G S Singh*, Hon. Prof. Guru Nanak Dev University, Advisor CRISIL

Abstract

In this article we look at the snap shot of business school in India. We try to discern a broad pattern in the business schools across India and with limited exposure across the various categories of business schools discuss the functioning of these schools. We also look at the likely reasons behind the existence of the most of the schools that do not make it to the any list of business schools in India but seem to be “profitable”.  We arrive at some pointers for the “categories” of schools being discussed. We are of the view that implementation under the frame work evolved around these pointers, will create value addition towards governance, learning out comes and quality. This frame work will enable business schools across categories and across India to make positive contribution towards training the requisite managers better suited for their roles and lifelong learning.

Introduction:

There are 3700 business schools in India. In a city like Pune – there are 400 MBA and PGDM programmes being offered. Given such a concentration and numbers, the competition for students and faculty is really fierce for the majority of the business schools.

There are not enough Academically Qualified (AQ) faculties to service these institutions. And the situation of finding the Director with stipulated requisite qualifications, to head an institute, is still worse.

Majority of the business schools are happy to fill the seats and somehow hold the classes, run courses and act like placement agencies. But the plethora of new institutes all across India has dried up the catchment areas for students for relatively “well running” institutes as well. For example many of the aspirants from the B and C class towns may settle for the school closer to their place of residence rather than travelling the way to metros, Pune or National Capital Region and get admitted to an below average school – high on promises.

A typical business school having AICTE approval, may comply to the norms, like land, class rooms, computer lab, student to faculty ratio but is likely to be headed / promoted by people who are neither true academicians nor professionally qualified. One gets the impression that most of the promoters may not be into professional education for the cause of education and public good.

Some of the well intentioned provisions, like minority status, can be misused for admissions by unscrupulous promoters and management of the business schools. We found that many of the minority status institutes are able to stay viable because of control on admitting majority of the students. Older institutes say in existence for ten years or more, are considered stable and are able to stay afloat and remain “profitable”.

However, most of the institutes are feeling the heat of competition and over supply, and many of these in spite the infrastructure they have put in are at a loss to figure out, how to start on the quality journey to attract students, faculty and recruiters.

Premise

Any product or service has to be measured from the point of view of an end user. We need to see the quality of our output in greater details and in its final form before we even start evolving a plan of the higher education institute. For this let’s take for example the business school and its deliverable products such as the students, services – meaning consultancy, research and thought leadership.

What a business school graduate should be able to deliver and achieve in the organization he / she joins?  But as such it’s not a finished product for ages to come which will keep on performing on the same lines as though it’s a well manufactured product from a six sigma factory. It’s an intelligent human being with expected value addition by the business school so that the learning and development becomes a self propelling proposition beyond the business school education. Let’s enlist these required value additions:

·         At the lowest level – the market demands that a business school graduate should be able to perform the day to day function of the industry / corporate she joins.

·         These functions could be:

·   Basics of sales and marketing, basics of accounting, proficiency in business communication, report writing and basic business plan, balance sheet and team skills.

·          The above skill- set capabilities if imparted properly to the students; will make them perform as good field force with avenues to become senior managers in the organization as they deliver.

·         Most of the 3700 business schools in India with little more clarity in governance and in vision and mission, can gear themselves up for the above kind of value adds for the students.

·         Presently the students from these schools may command salaries from Rs.1.5 lac  per annum to Rs.4.0  lac per annum.

·         These business schools should consistently try to beef up their learning infrastructure and teaching resources by focusing on the enhancing and delivering the value additions for the roles they are preparing the students for. For this the business school should also try to bring in more exposure of business through guest faculties and if possible summer internship programme so that the product offered proves useful and has decent coefficient of learning.

Proliferation of the business schools

The Schools in the lowest category

·         These business schools can play on the aspirations of the students who have been poor in studies, poor in exposure and felt to have missed the bus already. Most of these students hail from the tier 3 and blow towns and villages. Parents also aspire for their children to do an MBA and become a manager.

·         As mentioned above – the role for these students, coming out of a tier two or good tier three business schools, could be a field role like a senior sales person, an accounts executive or an assistant HR executive for many years to begin with. Exception to the above over a period of time, can be brought in by the schools where the learning is of better quality, team building and group learning is encouraged , pedagogy is dynamic and there is continual effort  to enrich the teaching resources both as PQ and AQs.

Tier Three and Two Category Business Schools

·         This category could be that the schools are already in existence for 5 years or more. Some could be there for more than 10 years. They have what we call more recall coefficient and most of them are working hard to maintain their place among the second and third tier schools and also competing with the schools which are comparatively new but have the benefit of promoters and governing councils having experience of academics, education administration and industry with in India and abroad. The old timers may have the directors from academia who might have had a stint in regulatory bodies like AICTE, UGC, Universities and others. The new ones are taking the faster and already tested path with some contextualization to be ahead in the race and the many of the older ones are suffering because of the baggage carried by the top management. There is another set of schools which boasts great infrastructure – wifi campus, ac class rooms, ac library and spend a lot on advertising but are short on excellent faculty resources and at times on scruples. However these schools build their brands by advertising blitz and tall claims. They also secure some understanding with lesser known schools abroad and thus claim to be world class.

       Challenges and Opportunities

·         Most of our hopes and frustrations may get validated by tier two and three set of schools. Challenge is to convert every one of these schools into the best category schools in India and hence bring in more and more competitive excellence. Many of the schools in spite of having all the infrastructure and stable faculty have hit the limitation of inertial momentum, where in they are not able to show better results year after year and are struggling to get the better quality students, thus are likely to lose steam with every passing year.

·         The biggest problem is when many of these schools, remain in their silos and the management attitude is, to show themselves as running the best school but not work on making their school one of the best. These schools manage to get all the mandatory accreditation and also comply to the regulatory requirements, so that they can run their courses unhindered. Students and parents do get taken in by the approvals secured by the business schools without realizing that these accreditation and approvals are actually conformity to the minimum they should have in the scale.

·   Quality of teaching and learning in many of these schools, though better than the lowest rung schools but may have stopped evolving because of complacency.

·    Environment and zeal to change for the better are generally conspicuous by their absence in these schools.

A Framework for Achieving Continual Excellence

How do we go about bringing in quality improvement and culture of learning?

Vision and Mission

·         Quality of purpose and quality for purpose needs to be over encompassing part of the frame work for any business school. A vision and mission evolved with respect to quality of purpose and its review and validation by all the stake holders should be part of the accepted process. The continual improvement in the overall quality of governance is one of the outcome of frame work driven by vision and mission.

Faculty - Develop or Parish

·         Good faculty for higher education in India is just not available. Problem has financial and societal history and absence of good quality research in our university system has compounded the problem beyond any short term solution. We are taking our own time to attract the faculty of Indian origin from US and other universities. IFMR institute of management’s efforts are worth emulating in this regard. Have in-house quality research jointly with world class institutions abroad and get the faculty by offering research opportunities and other incentives.

·         Another laudable effort at a substantial cost is being undertaken by IBS Hyderabad. Full time research-scholars are engaged with stipend double that of many institutes offering in India. A pre doctoral immersion assignment abroad with an external guide, after 2 to 3 years into research is funded by the institute. It’s a programme designed to show very good results over long term with output as faculty, capable of producing quality research output. A programme designed on the above lines can benefit all the institutions with a vision to become world class.

·         Exposure to the best practices, by way of interaction and networking is an established practice all around the world. However, in India, this exercise seems to be done more in letters than spirit. The practice is limited to the short trips abroad by the top management. These are more of photo sessions to be published in the school magazine rather than a serious effort on meaning full engagement with the better schools abroad. Most of the times MoUs signed during these visits are more for student’s jaunts abroad than a value added exchange.

·         A well thought out road map and programme for faculty development with incentives and challenges is required to be in place.

·         Business schools need to lay emphasis on faculty exchange and student exchange programmes with the other schools with in India and abroad.

·          Innovation in collaborative teaching, research incentives and faculty development can lead to a vibrant learning environment. However most of the second and third rung schools are hardly pursuing these ideas and practices. Collaboration in teaching and research at intra and inter school level and sharing of best practices should be taken as a serious goal.

·         The schools need to focus on serious and engaging activities within and without. Some of these could be:

·   KRA for the faculty in improving teaching and learning in their respective subject areas and beyond. In case the syllabus is set by the university or AICTE kind of body, the KRA will focus on learning methodology and enhancement to learning in the class room and beyond. In case of an autonomous institute it would also mean to frequently update the courses and course ware after discussing with the peers and other stake holders.

Industry Interaction and collaboration

Industry interaction and interface needs very innovative approach if the school does not have location advantage. A cluster or collaborative approach among the schools with no or very little location advantage can act as a catalyst.

·         ICT technology can facilitate the interaction without really making the corporate seniors to travel. We have seen initial impact of the leverage of ICT at IIM Shillong, the corporate seniors are more willing to interact with the students and faculty because of the no pain of travel involved. The ICT infrastructure can also make the students learning much more extensive and teaching more enhanced and advanced.

Research

·         Research is one activity which has a very visible impact towards making the environment vibrant and conducive to learning. It’s a part of KRA for an institute to understand the local, national and international problems and issues and address these by research, problem solving and continual interaction and involvement.

1.       It will also help institute to think big and get involved in grand challenges,  local and regional problem solutions.

2.       Collaborative teaching and research should be evolved as an institutional policy.

Towards Sustainable Management

·         It’s a buzz word as well as a very timely intervention required  in business teaching and training approach. Sustainable management, forming the core of curriculum, in every subject taught and covered at the business schools, will go a long way in creating young global manager with sustainability of social, environmental and geographical resources. ASPEN Institute has been doing a good work and has developed a matrix and framework to prepare for the sustainability criteria, and learning.

With basics in place and processes and systems implemented, to validate and fine tune the vision and mission as institutes go forward, we can really bring in lot of value add for all the stake holders. Majority of the schools out of 3700 will not only get benefitted by a continual and neutral evaluation but also will be able to contribute a lot towards nation building efforts.

The case of top rung business schools has to be studied and analyzed w.r.t different parameters.  To our mind a top rung business school in existence for four decades, getting the best students in the country and comparatively more autonomous than the many top rung business schools running as university departments – has to definitely move into the international league on all the parameters rather than being top in some and lopsided in others. The systems, processes and good governance has to be in place by default for these schools. Where these schools should be excelling are in the following areas:

a.       A vibrant vision and mission – owned by every constituent of the school, be it top management / promoters – actually they should be evolving and driving it, be it faculty, administration, students – . Students getting selected will be as per their fitment to the culture and areas of excellence of the school.

b.      Attracting and keeping the best of faculty. Most of the top schools are in some way or the other govt. funded and controlled. Rules of appointment to faculty positions are more like govt. service rules. The security of service is more or less granted and incentive for consulting is more monetary than academic. Work environment though better than many business schools can be elevated by good governance to an exciting and quality research output level.

c.       A vibrant collaborative programme with the similar and better schools in the world.

       A continual show casing of world class research, consultancy, thought leadership, collaborative development of teaching and research resources, students value add beyond themselves and           attitude to make a grand and real impact in the business, society and the world.

d.      Powerful and innovative drivers need to be adopted to create and promote blue ocean industries, IPRs and entrepreneurs. The product of the schools and the faculty of the school – see themselves as problem solvers par excellence. The school produces world managers with inclusive learning and education. For example the course work will not be only management but will also have liberal arts, science and technology and other creative subject areas. Idea is that problems of the future will need solutions approaches coming from our understanding of philosophy, history, social sciences and tools of other fields, like life sciences, physical sciences, to solve.

e.      Many top schools in India are stand alone and that could be a big constraint in innovation. To quote  Lord Sainsbury's  definition, the innovation is "the successful exploitation of new ideas." They don't stop with the invention. They turn their inspirations into reality. Entrepreneurs  can fit this definition to quite an extent . But for ideas and innovation to happen, a vibrant campus across field - engineering, sciences, liberal arts - interaction and researched is a necessary condition. Why MITs, Stanford and campuses like UC Berkley lead in scientific and social entrepreneurs, because they leverage the developments across fields, innovations and managerial talents to converge to a successful outcome. Having said that this kind of campus culture also helps in germinating the other components and culture for development – e.g. Silicon Valley, where you have almost best support system at hand to start a start up, making it to a big enterprise and able to get noticed and so on.

f.        Schools will have to make a beginning as thought leaders in their chosen field – which in turn will be dictated and evolved by vision and mission. These schools need to come out with newer line of thinking and curriculum. For example teaching failure and how it leads to success, how vision and mission can be the DNA of an enterprise, scenario building research can geminate the seeds of designing products and companies of the future. To give an example, why not have a course on entrepreneurship and start up where the students scan and understand the research and product ideas from across the res. Labs in the campus or beyond, join hands with the IPR owners and come out with a feasible plan for a start up and take it to execution.

g.       Visiting faculty, Students , collaborative teaching and research with other schools around the world and with in the country – again this choice has to be dictated by the vision and mission – will not only enhance the standing of the schools but will also help best of the talents contributing towards the achievements of the school.  

Another area where the top schools can show the way is on boosting productivity of higher education in India by not only utilizing their resources optimally. By utilizing efficient and innovative management practices, the business school can bring down the cost of a degree substantially with out compromising on the quality.  Some of the areas in managing the higher education, where innovation and efficiency could be brought in are:

Using technology support to impart the instructions efficiently.  Higher education is all about enhancing ones learning. It makes sense that technology and on line resources be used to acquire pre requisite understanding and learning and a mentor or a teacher enhances that learning in the class room. Many institutes are already doing this in India but most of these are in the private sector. These institutes are also able to deliver quality learning by using more of part time quality faculty as mentors.

Using Shared resources. The biggest pain point in Management education, if we ask any administrator or director, is the non-availability of quality faculty. As mentioned in this paper above some of the institutes have embarked upon a costly and long term programme to develop quality faculty in house. However there is still a lot of scope available to leverage the quality faculty with in an institution and across institutions. Many schools ask their star faculty to teach, utilizing the biggest class room available. This practice is old, at CALTECH, physics lecture series by Feynman used to be conducted in the auditorium. At technical university of Delft, Netherlands, the undergraduate physics classes by Ted Young were conducted in a dome to 600 students. Subsequently the assignments are overseen by the graduate teaching assistants. With ICT infrastructure in place, some institutions are already increasing teaching delivery of their star faculties by putting big video screens in the multiple class rooms for a lecture. The future could be that a reknowned star faculty lectures are streamlined over the net in a syndicated manner, thus leveraging the best of teaching across the globe with economy of scale.

Improving efficiency in core support services*. Like any other enterprise, efficiency improvent by leaner processes in service functions like management, student services, auxiliary power supplies and air conditioning, purchasing can reduce the cost substantially. There are some private schools in India taking these services very seriously with continual cost efficiency. However this cost reduction as of now may not be reducing the cost of the degree for the students.

Other functions such as hostel services, mess and cafeteria services, logistics and guest house services can also be managed innovatively and may generate revenues and profits to bring the cost of a degree.

A small study by Mackenzie* has shown that the cost efficiency could be of the order of 25%.

Mandated GER is to be double for higher education from present 14% to 30% by 2020 ( HRD minister in Jaipur – April 2011). The resources required to achieve the above are not within the reach of the govt. However a 25% average reduction in the cost of a degree can help increase the GER by 25% with minimal extra provisions. Institutes need to publish the cost of degree and the best practices. Accreditation also can bring cost of degree as an important parameter and funding agencies will have a raison d'être  to fund efficient and quality institutes.

Conclusions: In this paper we have summarized the state of business education in India briefly and  tried to categorize the institutions and suggested some best practices being followed and to be followed. We have enumerated a frame work / road map to lift the quality of the schools in each category. For the top schools we have suggested some inputs to be considered. We have also mentioned that the top schools can take a lead to bring in efficiency in productivity revolution, so much a need of the hour for increasing the GER from 14 to 20% with constrained resources.

*Boosting productivity in US higher education, APRIL 2011, Adam Cota, Kartik Jayaram, and Martha C. A. Laboissière. http://e.mckinseyquarterly.com/15a3c74c1layfousiblvux3aaaaaaatxjrnhcjvo5i4yaaaaa

*View expressed in the article are personal views of the author

Rethinking NCHER (National Commission on Higher Education and Research) India

G S Singh

Founder Member, Higher Education Forum and Hon. Prof. GUD University, Amritsar, India.

Abstract

In this paper , the author, after having studied the draft NCHER bill and trying to put in clause by clause suggests, realized that whatever one may do cannot put in the soul into NCHER draft bones and flesh. The draft is introduced more as making one central authority assume the charge of almost everything in higher education, as the multicity of authorities did not work for the cause of education. What’s the cause of higher education and what’s the raison d'être for creating an authority like NCHER and what this “authority” should be taking upon itself so that it does not completely subsume the role of university and institution heads and their academic and administrative authority, which is ultimately responsible for delivering and nurturing the higher education and research across India, beyond themselves. Here is a small attempt to rethink the NCHER draft bill and suggest some premises based on which a new NCHER can be evolved.

Introduction

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, in his convocation address to the University of Allahabad in 1947, thus summed up the basic objectives of the university and its role in national life:
A university stands for humanism, for tolerance, for reason, for the adventure of ideas and for the search of truth. It stands for the onward march of the human race towards even higher objectives. If the universities discharge their duties adequately, then it is well with the nation and the people. Quoted from: A Larger Sense of Purpose: Chapter 1 of Higher Education and Society, by Harold T. Shapiro 

Building the Premise

To pause once in a while to adjust our sails and correct our course requires leadership in higher education at each level which imbibes the trait of “not for ourselves alone”.
To quote Shapiro, Universities serve society as both a responsive servant and a thoughtful critic. Thus, although the modern research university must serve society by providing the educational and other programs in high demand, the university must also raise questions that society does not want to ask and generate new ideas that help invent the future, at times even "pushing" society toward it. In this latter respect the contemporary research university is a prototypical liberal institution, always looking for a better set of arrangements within a wide spectrum of our individual and community lives. 
The two roles of a university 1) serve society by providing the educational and other programs in high demand and 2) raise questions that society does not want to ask and generate new ideas that help invent the future, at times even "pushing" society toward it.
Both of these roles are embedded in Nehru’s definition of a university albeit at a more sublime manner.
The author feel that there will not be any disagreement in agreeing to the above two roles of a university or of an Higher Institution. In that respect any authority like NCHER should have its main function in acting as a facilitator and catalyst towards performing these roles.

Present NCHER Bill

How the creation of NCHER and whatever is contained in the draft bill will help the universities performing the two above roles is a question we need to ask and figure out whether the authors of this draft bill have the same focus or its more of creating a Super Body to regulate and orchestrate the functioning of Higher Education institutions as per some “standard norms and processes” framed by NCHER.
On the other hand what we need to address here is just not making these institutions function as per the rules of NCHER, but allow them to function and govern as education institutions which are essentially public trusts to serve society as both a responsive servant and a thoughtful critic. 
NCHER draft bill goes into great detail about the selection, creation and functioning of the commission. It also details the powers of the commission. In the suggested draft, very little is left for the universities and institutes to differentiate themselves and have the opportunity to allow diversity of scholarship, thought process, teaching and learning, research and development in chosen direction to flourish as responsive servants to the society and also as thoughtful critic. 

Rethinking the Premise

With these major roles for our Higher Education Institutions in mind, we need to think afresh as to how we can achieve this without further complicating the issues. Generally the tendency in govt. is that if a system is not producing results because of the faulty execution and the people with personal agenda at the helm of affairs, instead of clearing the mess, a new system is sought to be created. The recent notification by AICTE regarding management institutions is a glaring example of putting more controls in place without making an attempt to understand the cause of failure and hence overhauling the system and processes to deliver better and nurture the cause of Higher Education.
We need to look at the core requirements and then the core enablers to fulfill those requirements. More autocratic and monolith a structure, more difficult it will become to get all the stake holders involved in furthering the cause of education. And equally worry some fact is that in the process we lose the best people, thus encouraging mediocrity over meritocracy.
NCHER in any form should be a body more with moral authority – rather than executive authority. It should author the overall guidelines for the Higher Education in India. It should ascertain that only the best of the people are attracted to the field of Higher Education. For example it can invite people of eminence to its portal but then we will be having a “grey” think tank past prime of their productive years. It’s observed over a period of time, that a noble laureate is least productive after getting the prize. Generally a person is most productive between 40 and 60 years of age. Then we have the problem here – our beurocracy will be hard put to find out these people, who may be working on grand challenge problems, producing world class work, but still remain “unknown” as they have not got any international accolade. Major problem to tackle is how to get these people on board NCHER and into our Higher Education System.
Form an inclusive body of scholars, scientists and researchers in engineering, sciences, technology, sociology, management sciences, comparative study of religion, history and so on. This group should be an international group. Let them pose the problem of Higher Education in India to themselves and put themselves away for one month and come out with draft approach- addressing the following:

1.        What is the function and role of a university? (Yash Pal report may have some inputs here)

2.        If we agree on two roles of the university as mentioned above, then how these two roles can be realized by the university, in the context of:

a.      time dependency- changing social, economic and political world scenario

b.     What it is that will remain constant in these roles.
 What kind of persons will be able to lead these institutions?  

                                          

3.        Do the scenario building exercise for various types of institutions; say 5 years, 10 years and 15 years from now.

a.      Come out with the funding requirement, mode of funding and role of researchers, faculty and     the institutions in raising and utilizing the resources.

b.     What should be the guidelines for intellectual capital creation and ownership? Traditionally, for example – Copy Right of books absolutely rests with the author but IPR should not go the same way as the institutional resources – intellectual and material, built over years are extensively used in creating these IPRs. It’s also very important for keeping our future safe that public trust institutions should hold a substantial portion of the Intellectual Capital being created.

4.        The above will also provide pointers to how demand driven and how beyond ourselves kind of teaching, research and thought process should be evolved. Going forward, a draft frame work could guide the universities and Higher Education Institutions in fulfilling their roles.

5.        In doing all this – extreme caution and care has to be exercised that we encourage rather than taking away the heterogeneous character of our institutes. This will require that instead of a regulatory and controlling authority, NCHER functions as a guiding body for universities and universities in turn act as guiding bodies for institutes and departments with them. 

6.        Conclave also needs to figure out the way and means to curb the malpractices and also clean the existing system. For that it may be a good idea to take the leaf from financial regulators and allow neutral agencies to grade the present institutes and universities. NCHER can fix the criteria for merging the weaker with strong, to close the very weak ones or make them shift their focus to vocational education. 

7.        The selection of the Head of the Institutions from a registry sounds a good idea but is fraught with loosing good people or not even getting them interested, who may like the assurance and offerings in a much quicker time frame. It may be a good idea to have a search committee with international membership to do the needful. Search committee itself needs to be of the people who are active in the field and may know the highly eligible people from their work. 

Conclusion

NCHER will be able to serve better if it understands the role of a university/Institution of higher learning and then sits down to prepare a document for its own and as well as the institutes / university guideline. Higher education institutions should be allowed to function and flourish as fountain head of professional and liberal art education, centre of excellence, innovation, research, professional education and also act as thought leaders for the society and nation as a whole.
giansunder.singh@gmail.com 

Enhancing Productivity and GER in Higher Education

Dr. G S Singh, Advisor CRISIL, Hon. Prof. Guru Nanak Dev University

Introduction
HRD minister in India is emphasizing in press or otherwise very regularly that India needs to double GER gross enrolment ratio) for higher education from present 14% to 30% by 2020 (HRD minister in Jaipur – April 2011). Already the number of university we have and more institutions coming up face the uphill task to in attracting and recruiting suitable faculty. Even the infrastructure resources required to achieve the above are not within the reach of the govt. What we feel as per the observations and inferences in this paper, a 25% average reduction in the cost of a degree is attainable and can help increase the GER by 25% with minimal extra provisions. Institutes and universities need to publish the cost of degree and the best practices. Accreditation or grading process also can consider the cost of a degree as an important parameter and funding agencies will have a raison the etre to fund efficient and quality institutes.

Lead by Example
The top schools, institutions and universities in India can show the way on boosting productivity of higher education in India by utilizing their resources optimally. This can be achieved by evolving and implementing efficient and innovative management practices. Business schools like IIMs and other top schools can come out with a framework, so its efficacy by in house implementation. Show casing of a working scheme to bring down the cost of a degree substantially without compromising on the quality will have a domino effect and other institutes of higher education can implement the framework as per their needs and requirements.

Immediate areas for improvement, efficiency and innovation
Some of the areas in managing the higher education, where innovation and efficiency could be brought in are:

Using technology support to impart the instructions efficiently. Higher education is all about enhancing ones learning. It makes sense that technology and on line resources be used to acquire pre requisite understanding and learning and a mentor or a teacher enhances that learning in the class room. Many institutes are already doing this in India but most of these are in the private sector. These institutes are also able to deliver quality learning by using more of part time quality faculty as mentors.

Using Shared resources. The biggest pain point in higher education, if we ask any administrator or director, is the non-availability of quality faculty. However, we have observed that, some of the institutes have embarked upon a costly and long term programme to develop quality faculty in house. There is still a lot of scope available to leverage the quality faculty with in an institution and across institutions. Many schools ask their star faculty to teach, utilizing the biggest class room available. This practice is old, at CALTECH, physics lecture series by Feynman used to be conducted in the auditorium. At technical university of Delft, Netherlands, the undergraduate physics classes by Ted Young were conducted in a dome to 600 students. Subsequently the assignments are overseen by the graduate teaching assistants. With ICT infrastructure in place, some institutions are already increasing teaching delivery of their star faculties by putting big video screens in the multiple class rooms for a lecture. The future could be that a renowned star faculty lectures are streamed over the net in a syndicated manner, thus leveraging the best of teaching across the globe with economy of scale.

Improving efficiency in core support services*. Like any other enterprise, efficiency improvement by leaner processes, in service functions like management, student services, auxiliary power supplies and air conditioning, purchasing can reduce the cost substantially. There are some private schools in India taking these services very seriously with continual cost efficiency. However this cost reduction as of now may not be reducing the cost of the degree for the students as majority of the schools services level are already minimal!
Other functions such as hostel services, mess and cafeteria services, logistics and guest house services can also be managed innovatively and may generate revenues and profits to bring the cost of a degree.
A small study by Mackenzie* has shown that the cost efficiency could be of the order of 25%.
*Boosting productivity in US higher education, APRIL 2011, Adam Cota, Kartik Jayaram, and Martha C. A. Laboissière. http://e.mckinseyquarterly.com/15a3c74c1layfousiblvux3aaaaaaatxjrnhcjvo5i4yaaaaa